Matt Gurney: Will the Ontario Liberals give up their union supporters?

Third party funding: Will the Liberals give up their union supporters?

This week, in an annual report, the Ontario’s chief electoral officer recommended limits on third-party spending. Political parties already face campaign spending limits, at both the provincial and riding level. But any other group in Ontario can band together and raise funds for advertising about issues close to their hearts. The electoral officer noted in his report that such spending has been booming in Ontario over the last few years, tripling between the 2007 and 2011 campaigns. Such advertising has the potential to be a major factor in elections, and there are already restrictions in place at the federal level and in other provinces.

This is a proposal that Ontario should adopt on its own merits — as democracy evolves, the rules must evolve with it to preserve the integrity of the process. But there is an intriguing wrinkle to all this: In Ontario, third-party advertising has massively benefited the governing Liberals, to the detriment of the Tim Hudak-led Progressive Conservatives.

Premier Kathleen Wynne has already signalled at least her openness to the idea of spending limits and increased transparency obligations for third parties, despite no doubt being tremendously tempted to just thank the electoral officer for his hard work and shelve the report in the dustiest shelf in the dankest basement at Queen’s Park.

Numbers from the last campaign demonstrate why she could be expected to hesitate. The parties in that election were limited to $9-million in campaign spending. But a variety of third party groups also spent heavily. Three in particular stood out: The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario spent $2.6-million, the English Catholic Teachers’ Association spent $1.9-million and the Working Families Coalition spent $1-million. Those three groups, by themselves, spent up to 61% of what a registered party could have under the existing rules, and could have spent 10 times that had they been able to raise the cash. Not one of those dollars did anything to help Mr. Hudak.

The Tories have contended, and even (unsuccessfully) went to court to argue, that these efforts amount to Liberal support by any other name. There’s logic to that position, as all three of those groups targeted their ads squarely at Mr. Hudak and his party. But it’s also not quite as black and white as the Tories might like, since any group of citizens has every right to band together and raise funds to promote a shared cause.

The Liberals have benefited from this, undeniably — and ironically, considering how toxic the relationship between former premier Dalton McGuinty and the teachers unions became after the election. But it’s impossible for the Tories to prove that all the third parties are effectively Liberal proxies. They tried, and failed.

That makes Premier Wynne’s apparent willingness to consider limits on third party spending all the more remarkable. Limits on third party spending will hurt her party.

Or perhaps not. The Premier left herself some wiggle room when she said she supported looking into the matter, so long as the rights of private citizens to raise funds and speak on issues close to their hearts is respected. We may soon find that the Premier’s idea of respecting the rights of the citizens happens to entirely encompass the sort of activities that have so benefited her party in recent years. It admittedly is a difficult issue to approach, as there are legitimate competing interests on both sides. It would be easy for Premier Wynne to strike a semi-reasonable note that leaves the third parties free to continue savaging the Tories. All in the name of free speech, of course.

But the Ontario voters deserve better. Yes, citizens can (and should) organize and raise funds for causes they support, but democracy is fragile. Voters would rightly be alarmed at a private company spending lavishly to frustrate the electoral hopes of a political party, and the same principle should apply here. A union-backed fund can distort democracy as easily as corporate dollars can, and is no less harmful for having done so.

Perhaps Premier Wynne believes this, and will support third party limits because it’s the right thing to do. If that’s the case, bravo. Making Tim Hudak’s life a little bit easier isn’t Kathleen Wynne’s job, but it’s a small price to pay to preserve Ontario’s political system from undue outside influence.